ruin hanging over the Church, and by consequence, over the whole Reformation. The outward state of things is bad enough. God knows; but that which heightens our fears rises chief from the inward state into which we have unhappily fallen. I will, in examining this, confine myself to the clergy." In 1736, Bishop Butler said, "It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted, by many persons, that Christianity is not so much a subject of inquiry: but that it is now at length discovered to be fictitious. And assuredly, they treat it as if, in the present age, this were an agreed point amongst people of discernment, and nothing remained but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule." In 1738, Archbishop Secker declared that "An open and professed disregard to religion is become, through a variety of unhappy causes, the distinguishing character of the present age. Indeed, it hath already brought in such dissoluteness and contempt of principle, in the higher parts of the world, and such profligate intemperance, and fearlessness of committing crimes in the lower, as must, if this mighty torrent of impiety stop not, become absolutely fatal. And God knows, far from stopping, it receives, through the designs of some persons, and the inconsiderateness of others, a continual increase." In 1731, Dr. Watts remarks, "Nor is the complaint of the dissolution of virtue and piety made only by Protestant dissenters: it is a general matter of mournful observation amongst all that lay the cause of God to heart; and therefore, it cannot be thought amiss for every one to use all just and proper efforts for the recovery of dying religion in the world."[1]
- ↑ These extracts are from the report of a speech by Dr. Bayley, delivered at a public meeting in Freemason's Hall, London, August 19th, 1851.
